The Prime Minister has scored a brilliant summer hit with the headline writers. “EU migrant benefit curbs fast-tracked”; “Government announces limits on EU migrants’ benefits access”; “New rules on migrant benefits to be announced as UK makes system more robust against abuse”; and “Further curbs to migrant access to benefits announced”.

Except, of course, these headlines are from December, January, February and April respectively. His latest announcements on Europe and welfare are just a matter of the Government still trying to play catch-up with public opinion.

And while moves towards making our benefit system less open to abuse are welcome, there are serious questions as to their legality. According to European legislation, it is quite clear that all EU citizens must be treated equally when it comes to benefits. Dotted through the European treaties are references to this: Articles 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Articles 18, 20, 45 and 48 of the Treaty on the Functioning of The European Union. The most explicit, Article 48, states very clearly that this equality includes the “payment of benefits to persons resident in the territories of Member States”.

Beyond the treaties themselves, there are EU laws that specify, “nationals of an EU country and persons residing in that country without being nationals of it are equal in terms of the rights and obligations provided for by the national legislation. The provisions of this Regulation apply to all the traditional branches of social security” including, but not exclusive to, unemployment and family benefits. In other words, anything Mr Cameron does to European immigrants, he has to do to British people, too.

This isn’t a matter of opinion. This is European law. It means that any legislation that a UK government brings in to change benefits entitlement must apply equally to UK citizens, or face the fiercest opposition in the European courts. Put simply, the European Union in its current form will not allow the British Government to do the things that the Prime Minister says he wants to do to European migrants’ claims, without also applying those changes to his own people.

If you want an illustration of where power lies in the EU, proof of how impotent our membership of the union renders our government, remember that the European Commission has already said that it is investigating this new policy statement from the Prime Minister to see if it complies with European law.

I cannot believe that Mr Cameron is seriously suggesting that these restrictions apply to UK citizens as well. So it looks like an enormous hostage to fortune.

That’s not the only problem with Mr Cameron’s promises. He casts the spotlight on EU immigrants who come to the UK and claim unemployment benefits. He does not address the far greater problem of in-work benefits such as tax credits.

It is the case that migrant workers are less likely to claim unemployment benefit than British people. However, they are more likely to claim the far more costly in-work benefits. This is due to the simple fact that they are, in the main, at the lower end of the wage scale.

And this brings me to the real issue, the one that Mr Cameron and the rest of the political class repeatedly skirt around, the one that makes his benefits promises just so much window-dressing.

The problem with mass migration is not so much the misuse of benefits by a minority – though that is wrong – but is the impact of mass, low-waged and unskilled labour upon the wages, employment opportunities and services in this country. I have been campaigning for years, not on the point of benefits, but the impact of the sheer numbers.

Even Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, couldn’t help but allude to the subject last week as he talked about a “staggering” 25 per cent slump in demand from Europe for British exports, combined with what he described as the effects of “more labour supply than we had previously thought”. He went on to comment that we have “severe” structural problems due to a “chronic” shortfall in housing. Yes, these things are related.

Just look at the way that growth is disproportionately helping the rich, who benefit from cheap labour supply, while the low-waged see pay cuts and freezes. The Local Government Association tells us that there will be a shortfall of 130,000 primary school places in the next three years, caused almost entirely by migration and a soaring birth rate among first-generation migrants.

Open-door immigration from ex-communist countries with GDPs wildly different from our own has resulted in a situation where the lives of millions of our citizens are affected by an issue over which, due to our membership of the European Union, we have no control. But the Prime Minister is promising to bring in measures that will affect a few thousand people, rather than deal with an issue that impacts on the lives of millions.

No amount of warm words or glib promises will provide any confidence that the Government has either the will or the desire to act effectively on migration. Nor will they change the fact that such action is impossible while Britain remains a member of the European Union.